Charming Compactness: Mini-ITX Cases Roundup. Page 17

Today we are going to talk about five mini-ITX system cases from Cooler Master, Foxconn, InWin, Silverstone and SuperPower. How easy is it to put together a simple computer system inside them? And what about something more powerful? Will the enclosed power supplies be powerful enough for that challenge?

SuperPower RealPower 200XA (250W)

Unfortunately, we could not test this power supply. For some reason, it refused to work with our testbed, shutting down immediately. It worked normally within a computer, though.

One look at its photo is enough to get rid of any illusions, though. This power supply is kind of a dummy or demo sample rather than a power source for a gaming PC with a fast graphics card and CPU. Its design is extremely simplified to cut the manufacturing cost. The capacitors have low ratings and the transformers’ cores are as small as possible. There is no output noise filter and no power factor correction. The +3.3V regulator is based on a cheap and low-efficiency linear circuit instead of a magnetic amplifier. And finally, the real output power of the PSU, as is indicated in the small print on the label, is 200W whereas 250W is its peak output power.

All of this means that the RealPower 200XA is a power supply of an extremely simplified design akin to no-name products from mainland China. You should not risk using it unless you don’t care a bit about your PC components.

Here is one illustrative photo that shows the total weight of the power supply with all its cables and connectors. We guess it is a record low weight among all PSUs we have ever tested in our labs.